I wouldn't want to be out of Wave when Seagate/Dell/Wave announcement hits, or any of the other possible OEM's who want Seagates' FDE w/Waves TDM!! We know that Seagate will want to line up as many OEM's as it can while it has first mover advantage.
"Seagate is also in discussions with major, brand name laptop makers and expects to announce more deals for its new hard drive midyear."
"The Seagate drives are equipped with the company's new "DriveTrust" technology, which the company promotes as a simpler way to safeguard data stored on laptops. The encryption technology is designed to make life tougher for computer thieves and to prevent embarrassing breaches.
ASI is a small player among notebook makers. It ships "whitebook" computers that don't carry a name brand and are sold by resellers who sometimes put their own names on the hardware.
Seagate is also in discussions with major, brand name laptop makers and expects to announce more deals for its new hard drive midyear."
SKS: "We certainly would expect to expand on our OEM relationships, as time goes forward. There are many OEMs who are sampling drives today, and we certainly look forward to working with them to supply software."
From the 4th Q CC:
"But let me start by expanding further on what we're doing with Seagate, what the product is, how it works. This is a new product line for us and I've done this on a number of previous calls. I think it's really important to understand the basic fundamentals of how we make our money, and what the product is, and why we think the customer will buy this product.
So, on the first basis, this business model is very similar to our standard OEM business model, in that we have licensing arrangements where we supply a lightweight version of our software, either through Seagate bundled with the drive, or directly to a PC manufacturer. And we actually now have both relationships in place. We certainly would expect to expand on our OEM relationships, as time goes forward. There are many OEMs who are sampling drives today, and we certainly look forward to working with them to supply software."
Seagate Technology has announced that it is now shipping its Momentus 5400 FDE.2, an encrypting 2.5-inch notebook PC hard drive for notebooks, to ASI Computer Technologies. The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 (Full Disc Encryption) hard drive offers up to 160GB of capacity, Serial ATA interface, and hardware-based AES encryption. The encrypting hard drive is also positioned as a means by which organizations can easily repurpose or retire laptops without compromising sensitive information and comply with data privacy laws.
ASI Computer Technologies plans to offer the drive in its new ASI C8015 system, which will also feature a biometric fingerprint reader for stronger user authentication. The laptop will target healthcare, legal, finance, government, and other industries requiring strong protection of information stored on laptop PCs. The C8015 will feature Wave Systems Embassy Security Center's Trusted Drive Manager, software that simplifies setup and configuration of Momentus 5400 FDE.2 drives. Trusted Drive Manager also makes it easy for administrators and users to create and backup passwords, and for administrators to control hard-drive policies and security settings. The software also leverages Seagate's DriveTrust Technology to allow administrators to instantly and easily erase all data cryptographically so the drive can be safely redeployed or discarded.
With all the fuss about security, data theft, compliance and whatnot, the market has seen many vendors ply their data security solutions with an increasing zeal. Software-based encryption for files or hard drives is not new; however, the interest in it has grown considerably in light of recent embarrassing, if not illegal, data leaks or losses reported by various organizations. One of the challenges with software encryption is that it is generally not well understood by the technical layperson, and implementations often tend to be limited or specific in nature, e.g., encrypting email or certain files associated with a given application. By incorporating encryption at the hardware level, its use can be largely invisible to the user, which can remove a large obstacle to an effective deployment.
While many may view encryption of mobile devices such as notebooks solely as a means to block access to sensitive data in case of loss or theft, it can also prove advantageous to IT professionals. Depending upon the practices of an organization, sometimes a notebook may be "reassigned" to a new user, without IT's knowledge. It probably will not have been recovered to its factory-shipped configuration and the drive may still contain sensitive information even if it was deleted. With configuration software such as the Trusted Drive Manager, IT can intercept such a transfer at the preboot authentication phase by having the system not grant access if the user is not recognized as part of the preboot authentication, which is under the control of IT. The system would then flow back through IT, which can then take whatever preventative actions necessary to ensure the safety of sensitive information before repurposing the notebook to its new user."
And this from the 4th Q CC:
"We think there's a very compelling reason as to why corporations want these drives. They're a very simple solution. They're a very efficient solution in the market. And we would also like to believe that a high percentage of customers will take the Wave administration tools for these drives because it provides the centralized control, as well as the audit capability, which is really the reason why any corporation is spending money today on data protection. It’s not just to protect the data, but it's also to be in compliance with the state laws and regulations that are out there.
So, we don’t have a ton of data on this yet, we’ve been out marketing it for a little while. We’ve seen very positive acceptance from the industry analysts and press. I think certainly we saw some of this coverage during the course of this week and I think it’s been very positive, I think that’s a really good sign. We are actively delivering pilot units today to corporations. We’ve already delivered our first pilot systems, so we expect to get pretty broad feedback pretty quickly."
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